Ombrenuit on 19/12/2011 at 09:35
I just don't get it. Fallout 3 did it right imho. The world was dangerous and that made it exciting. A new character couldn't venture off too far without encountering superbeasts. There were plenty of dungeons way above your level starting out. The further away from the spawn point the more dangerous it was generally. But there was still level scaling too that made sure there was still freedom in whatever direction you chose to go.
And there were still places where you could find a giant scorpian guarding a cave and be like, "Wow I wonder what's in there? I'll have to come back when I'm more powerful."
SKYRIM Y U NO DO THIS?!
Koki on 19/12/2011 at 10:46
Uh, right. Because Skyrim doesn't do that at all with, say, Giants and Mammoths.
scumble on 12/1/2012 at 12:28
And the Bandit Draugr Restless Death Overlord Marauder Centurion Master of course...
I'm puling this thread up as I've finally got an opinion on it. Here's my experience with it at least, based on my playing preferences.
Initially I started playing on Adept, which is the default, and this seemed to be a little tough for my starting wood elf. Either that or I just wasn't too good at the game yet. Early on I was getting killed by the initial enemies in Helgen keep on the first attempts, so a good enough challenge for the novice I suppose. I went straight for the Bleak Fall Barrows quest and the golden claw, and got wasted by trying to take on two Draugr at the same time. The restless Draugr also took me down on the first couple of tries. At the dragon wall I ended up running away from the Draugr Overlord very fast because it didn't seem like I was able to handle the damage with the potions I had, so I came back later.
This all seemed to be working fairly well, and it made perfect sense to have a "Run away!" moment. I've done this a fair few times in particular areas.
Some of the criticisms are levelled at all areas being possible to handle at low levels. I think this must only apply at Novice difficulty. Early on you can't realistically take on a cave full of Falmer, or even a Sabre Cat. I suppose one could use a small skip full of potions, but that always seems like I'm having a fight with a spreadsheet. "Hang on enemy, I've just got to drink this healing potion before you can hit me again..."
The Sabre Cat made mincemeat of me and my Horse very quickly as I was on my way to Saarthal from the college of Winterhold. I got round it by galloping fast very quickly and hoping it didn't follow me.
Generally speaking this gives one an impression of Skyrim being fairly dangerous for the unhardened adventurer. Frostbite spiders are also pretty tough on a wood elf at Adept, but I persevered through Saarthal for a fair while before coming on a bit of a snag. There is one point where I bumped into a Draugr Scourge for the first time, and I couldn't seem to defeat the bastard after maybe as many as ten tries. In this sort of situation I feel like I just can't be arsed to drag myself out of the dungeon to get a stack full of healing potions and come back, so I felt stuck and slightly annoyed.
At this point I was thankful for being able to adjust the difficulty. The only thing is that switching down to Novice is too easy, so I bumped it to Apprentice and stayed on that. This made things fun again, but not so easy that there wasn't the odd toughie that presented a real danger.
In general I was quite pleased with the way that game was going.
With my Nord I tried turning the difficulty up, but this did not work out too well as I'd done this after some smithing and enchanting that bumped me up a few levels. Initially it was ok, and the Forsworn were just getting a bit more challenging, but manageable.
However, a bit later I passed a bandit fort, and found myself presented with a Bandit Maruader that was quite a bit of work take down, almost at boss level. It seemed I'd crossed some kind of inflection point where the enemies suddenly make a jump. Inside the fort I got killed several times by another seemingly ordinary bandit, and the Bandit Chief seemed to be on steroids or something. She was so fast I barely had time to take one swing before having to heal up. Even at apprentice she was pretty tough (for me). This is obviously where level scaling goes wrong - it's the effect of leveling in smithing and enchantment while armour and offensive skills get missed. At the wrong point the game makes a silly leap in difficulty. Some people like having to use all their potions up to get through a fight, but to me it just interrupts the flow so much that it's just not fun, it's a slog.
So again, the only thing you can do is adjust the difficulty, perhaps temporarily. You could say this a bit of a band-aid, but at least it saves one from outright cheating.
The scaling isn't brilliant, but it seems to work well enough. I think everyone is a bit silly to blame flaws on the console gamers. I know some hark back to the days where games were made for a select few "serious" gamers in a small market, but I think what we get to play now is a lot better apart from some key examples, which are probably just nostalgia-influenced. Many of the things I've thought blew me away in the past are just memories of feelings of a new thing that hadn't been possible before. Going back now reveals a lot of those games will actually seem a bit crap now, because there is so much more you can get into a computer. Well I guess it's that way for me.
